MY MENTAL STRUGGLE
There were two reasons why I decided to retire from the LPGA on February 2019. I have been comfortably enough to share the first one: my TFL injury. But I haven’t spent much time talking about my second reason: my mental struggles. And today I want to open up to you about it.
I am obviously only going as far as I feel comfortable with it. I can discuss privately with whomever wants to share some of their own personal experiences and we can talk on a deeper level. But as of right now, I just want to take you back to that day where I was forced to learn that vulnerability is not a curse or something you should be ashamed of, but a very powerful tool that could free you up from many emotional restrains.
On January 28th of 2019, I suffered a panic attack. It is safe to say that you will never know the severity of the meaning of that word until you suffer a real panic attack. People are very quick to use the word “panic attack” or they often confuse it with anxiety attacks. Anxiety attacks are more common since they often come in reaction to daily stressors. Some common stressors are: financial concerns, conflicts, break ups, work overload or any anticipation of stressful situations. But what I felt that day was bigger than just pre-competition jitters. I felt the true meaning of panic and worry. I had a shortness of breath causing a lost of my vision for a few minutes which led to numbness in my four limbs. This overall experience lasted around 45 - 60 minutes. And thank God I was parked on the street curbside, talking to Robert over on the phone.
From what I have read, they say panic attacks differ from anxiety attacks because they do not come in reaction to a stressor. But they also say an anxiety attack can lead to a panic attack. There is not a one shape fits all when it comes to mental struggles. But I am all about narrating what I felt that day and describe what was happening in my life during those previous days/weeks/months/years that may have caused or led to the panic attack.
Oddly enough, on January 28th of 2018, during the final day of the first event of the year in Bahamas; I tore my TFL on hole #7. What seemed to be a simple injury, turned out to be a chronic one. Because of the location of the tear, doctors weren’t able to get the proper diagnosis. So for several months I rehabbed and trained as if all I had was a tendinopathy (tendinitis). Long story short, I started to feel a little bit more alleviated after 11 months. And on January 1st 2019, I started my pre-season training in Arizona, working towards my comeback on Tour.
Before I fast-forward the days of my pre-season training, I need to put you in perspective of my previous 3 years on Tour. 2015-2017 were my worst years on Tour. I never lost my Tour card but I was dealing with lots of emotional roller coasters in my golf career. I was this cute kid, with lots of talent when never seemed to truly show it off on Tour. I put a lot of pressure on myself because I always felt I needed to perform well for my family, my team, my fans. The never ending story, I always put myself last.
My struggle was no different from any other athletes’ struggle. I dealt with financial stressors, commitment stressors, competition jitters, doubt, apathy, fear. When you play golf for a living, and you aren’t performing up to your capabilities; like any other sport, competition is not fun. You continuously suffer emotionally, draining your immune system to its lowest capacity from all the stress and physical wear. I am speaking from an athlete perspective, but I am certain people with regular jobs feel or have felt the same way.
Bouncing back from that is not easy, some athletes are capable of doing it faster than others. Some, never regain their confidence back and end up quitting. Before my injury, during those 3 bad years on Tour, I was in the verge of quitting despite my overload of talent. Yes, I was aware of it, but it was never enough. On August 2017, I found my light at the end of the tunnel. And his name is Jorge Parada. He gave me a whole new meaning and purpose to my golf practice. He made me a methodical player, so I could gain confidence from my hard work. He taught me drills to battle doubt on the golf course, and a step by step guide on how to become more robotic and less emotional when it came to my swing thoughts.
For the remaining of the 2017 year, I was able to finally play some real good golf. I ended the 2017 season almost winning my first LPGA event in New Zealand — you probably remember the ‘sheep lady’. Yes, that was me, and that was my event. I led three of the 4 day event, and lost the tournament during the final round to Brooke Henderson. But hey!, that was me bouncing back. That was me re-writing my own story.
That winter preseason was my best so far. For the first time in a very long time, I felt like I could be in contention. But I suffered the TFL injury that Sunday of the first week of the year. Why now? I was as fit as I could be. I was playing my best golf. And for the first time, I seemed to be enjoying my life on Tour again. Up until this day, I still believe my injury had to do with my state of mind. During my awful 2015-2017 seasons, I felt so much humiliation while competing that I wanted to quit. Competition wasn’t fun for me anymore. And all that stress, fear, humiliation and doubt never truly goes away. Unless you share these emotions with someone, your defense mechanism is to store them in your subconscious and pretend they never happened. But, like the song says What goes around, Comes back around. And all those negative emotions manifested in my TFL tear.
During my injury, to the outside world I said I was OK, when I wasn't. I was emotionally very unstable, I fought a lot with my parents and my boyfriend for no reason. And that is so atypical of me. And one day, the doctors gave me the OK to start practicing again.
And of course, I cramped one year of practice and physical training absence in less than a month of preseason training. I wanted to be ready for the first event of the year in Australia. But I gave myself obviously very little time.
Those 27 days were a shit show. They started great, having a first week of zero expectations. But as the days passed and the travel day approached, all the demons started ti come out. Physically, I started to feel pain again on my hip and that pain unlocked a world of emotions. At the same time, I started developing the yips with my Driver again. Only this time, 10x times bigger. I am not exaggerating when I say I was not able to hit a tee ball or range ball with my Driver in front of anyone. Even greenkeepers at a distance scared me. I developed this paranoia that everyone was staring at me and judging me every single second . And so when I was on my golf stance, seconds before hitting the tee-shot I developed a phobia. I couldn’t pull the trigger. Literally seconds before starting my back swing, I would lose feeling on my hands and I would lose gravity and sight perception. I couldn’t find my way back to my backswing. I just couldn’t swing. I confided on a few friends that only truly knew about this because they either suffered it with me on the driving range (Mike Pinkey, my club fitter; and Jorge Parada, my coach) or because they were my roommate at that time (Giulia Molinaro).
And the worst day of all ended up being my last day. That January 28th; only two days before flying out to Australia, I had my first on only panic attack. That day I had to cut my practice short, in a very violent and humiliating way because I wasn’t capable of hitting the golf ball. It was so humiliating, that on my way back I started to cry non stop and that’s when the panic attack triggers started. I had to pull up to the curbside because I started to lose sight. Like I said before, thank God I wasn’t alone during that time.
After that episode concluded, a clear thought came to my mind: “Belen, you do not have to do this if you don’t want to. Remember you chose to be a professional golfer, you are not forced to be one. And you are not JUST a professional golfer”. And only then, I understood that there were limits as to where an athlete has to be pushed. And I reached mine. I realized I didn’t fall in love with the game of golf just to be a professional golfer. When you play a sport at an elite level, you fall prey to the undeniable force of name-labelling. I had been Belén the golfer for so long, that I learned only to find validation in who I was as a person only if I had an LPGA status. But I found a whole world outside competitive golf. It took me a few days to brace myself and open up to the LPGA about my status. I could have extended my medical exemption with the pretext of my hip injury. But I didn’t want to hide. I wanted to face the reality of what was going on. I personally called all my sponsors to let them know what was I dealing with. For the first time, I found power in being vulnerable. And they did too. And that feeling game me so much strength that I wanted to use my experience as an example for all those players that do not find joy in competing anymore but are afraid to find other opportunities in life.
And today I stand here not as a quitter, but as a motivational speaker and an ambassador of mental health. I felt the weakness of vulnerability and I suffered in silence for a long time. Why? Probably because of embarrassment. Ego too. But today I want to share the power of speaking up. Mental health is not a taboo, it’s a real thing. I do not feel weaker because I dealt with mental issues, and I do not feel lesser because I decided to retire from a professional golf career. I feel extremely proud to have fought against uncertainty, to have recognized that my passion to be a professional golf player had an expiration date and to have found many joys and means of being competitive outside of the LPGA.